Neue Projects | Taking Contemporary Art into the Future

From Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days to Pak’s The Merge, NFTs are making waves in the art world, and have been doing so since early 2021. For better or worse, these eight-figure works have been buzzed about at length since Clubhouse catapulted (typically digitally-rendered) NFTs into the mainstream.

Where does this leave contemporary artists working in more traditional mediums? 

Margarita Kiryushkina and Jessica Tatievski saw a gap in the market for contemporary artists to showcase their valuable work within the Web 3.0 space. In response, they founded Neue Projects, a curatorial project geared towards creating opportunities for creatives who might not otherwise be able to access this fast-growing market. The two founders re-imagine art dealing for the twenty-first century, always with the artists’ best interests in mind and at heart. 

We spoke to Margo and Jessica about what inspired them to create the company, how they navigate the crypto space, and what’s next for Neue Projects (hint: the best is yet to come).

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How did you develop the idea for Neue Projects? 

Jessica: The idea for Neue Projects initially came to life when Margarita and I were presented with collectors from Europe who wanted to sell their post-war and contemporary artworks of pioneering artists privately in the United States – as the secondary market is much stronger over here. Being the entrepreneurs that we are, we decided to open Neue Projects to facilitate these sales and ensure that we bridge the gap between the traditional way of doing business and the way we wanted to do it, transparently and honestly, while having an open dialogue with both parties on either end. This led to opportunities to meet some incredible and knowledgeable collectors, artists, dealers, advisors, and other art intermediaries. One of these acquaintances was Ryan Hall, who at the time was setting up his agency for commercial creatives, and who happened to be introduced to the incredible photographer, Lawrence Horn, and their idea to sell the analog photography as NFTs. It made sense to us to explore this ecosystem as we heard the buzzword back at Clubhouse, where all types of different art connoisseurs came together to discuss NFTs and if it’s a quick hype and dump trend, or if it had staying power, back in March of 2021. As we started to slowly, but steadily immerse ourselves into the Web 3.0 space and explore its vast potentials, we understood that it could be a new medium for artists to showcase their work outside of the traditional realm and that was exciting for us. Even though we fully love the art market and all of its key players and stakeholders, we realize and continue to learn about its challenges: the system is extremely outdated, artists are continuously exploited, galleries have such high entry barriers that it becomes impossible for a new collector to start building their collection the way they envision it to be. So we decided that summer 2021 was the time to be serious about this ecosystem, and thus, The Digital Archive (TDA) was born to digitally archive the analog photography of Lawrence Horn onto the Ethereum Blockchain. Our role in this project is to ensure that the business operations, management, and strategy are successfully developed and executed, and we plan to utilize these core capabilities to build out Neue Projects within the NFT landscape. We are still in the early stages of formulating what Neue Projects will do in the space, one thing I can say right now: we will be working with contemporary artists within the traditional art market and introducing them into this wild-west market.   

Margo: Neue Projects came to this reality out of a passion for the art world, curiosity, and constant willingness to grow and expand as professionals in this particular field. As I love to say, everything happens for a reason, including when the opportunity arose to sell a painting by a blue chip artist that was located in Italy. With full force, Jessica and I decided that we will do our best to sell this work in the most favorable way to everyone involved. We didn’t know how, we just knew that we had to do this when we saw the opportunity. That is how it all started and we have begun our real and extremely eventful journey within the art world. We have learned our lessons the hard way. Mistake after mistake, we realized that those were crucial as they guided us to exactly what Neue Projects had become and what its fundamental beliefs are. I’m very proud to state that Neue Projects today is bridging traditional contemporary art with NFTs and crypto art. In the traditional art market, Neue Projects guides private collectors through the secondary art market by creating and executing bespoke strategies for art acquisition and management. Within the digital realm, we provide advisory services to our clients (artists, collectors) to recognize their potential goals in the most fruitful way with the utmost discretion. The belief that art dealing can be re-imagined through an honest and transparent approach is fundamental to Neue Projects as we position ourselves to become the leading artist-focused consultancy and art marketplace on Web 3.0. 

Lawrence Horn said that he waited for a “time that was coming” - which he identifies as now, the digital age - to release his infrared and color film scans. How did you come to collaborate with the photographer to release his work as NFTs?

Jessica & Margo: It all started with our mutual acquaintance, Ryan Hall, who was introduced to Lawrence Horn back in early 2021 through his roommate, Chloe, who met Lawrence at Thompson Square Park. Apparently, they bonded over spiritual awakening and auras. Ryan spent a lot of time with Lawrence on the phone and at some point Lawrence knew he wanted to entrust Ryan to take care of the body of archives by writing him into his will. Surreal story, I know, but Lawrence — at the time 77— was lonely, had no family, living in an unsuitable living situation and surviving off cliff bars, vitamins and chocolate. Lawrence generally thought that his photography that he created between 1973-1986 would never see the light of the day and that it would be thrown out once he passed (he had previously thrown out all of his physical artworks however we have photographs of each one of them). Ryan seemed to be a new light that Lawrence could find comfort in and entrust with the body of work that was in storage for over 40 years, and not seen by anyone until the summer of 2021. Margarita and I first met Ryan and instantly bonded over the art world, the future, the rise of new industries, and the endless potential to collaborate. We kept in touch with Ryan over the coming months and were thinking of how we could help him to re-introduce Lawrence into the traditional art world and the realm of NFTs. In August of 2021, as Ryan was forming a team of people who are passionate entrepreneurs and creatives to make this project happen, we understood that our experiences in management and finance and being business-minded, are absolutely crucial to make this digital archive the best analog photography project in the NFT space. And now we are here, working on making Lawrence Horn’s work live forever on chain.

You’ve touched on the struggle for artists to gain fair compensation for the value they bring to culture and society, and your intentions of helping artists within the NFT space. How will you go about this re-balancing? 

Margo: Again it is a process and at Neue Projects, there’s a lot that goes into it for this re-balancing to happen, as our fundamental belief is that the art market can be re-imagined and way more fair to the creators. In comes the incredible NFT space with its fruitful environment to operate with the utmost discretion and value honest communication as it’s absolutely transparent, all the data on the chain is open to the public. This space may unfold in various beneficial ways for artists as NFTs can prove a great tool for artists to show their works of art and to get compensated life long, even after their work is sold. Another important factor when it comes to NFTs is their accessibility. If you own an NFT you can easily check up on your artwork anytime, anywhere in the world. Which is not the case in the physical world. Furthermore, with NFTs and the power of the internet, artists are eligible to reach a much wider audience.

Jessica: In the traditional art world, galleries, dealers, and other art intermediaries can be seen as gatekeepers, trying to build a career for any given artist to ensure that this given artist will be part of the canon of art history. While this is totally fair, the politics that revolve around these types of practices are, in my opinion, very close-minded. We were talking to a curator not that long ago, who raised some interesting points about the standard practices of splitting sales between an artist and a gallery and how this traditional approach is being taken into viewing rooms and even in the NFT space. Now, there is a lot of conversation about how an artist can manage their own market through the means of NFTs, yet many creatives do not want to engage in the business-related activities that are necessary to strive in this market. Therefore a new type of intermediary needs to be implemented into the space, and that is exactly what Neue Projects wants to do - work with artists closely together to bring their art and vision into the NFT space without acting as a traditional gatekeeper. It is time for the creatives to build their own narrative and us providing all the necessary tools for them to do so. 

Some people are staunch advocates of the value of the crypto art marketplace for traditional contemporary artists, and others are vehemently against it. No matter your stance, it’s clearly not going anywhere. What do you see as the value for traditional artists in digitizing their work as NFTs? 

Margo: I define art as culture and today culture is digital. Clearly, as of now, the NFT market is very fresh and new it will definitely take some time to develop it to the point then it will become obvious to the majority of people and industries exposed to the digital world. To my expertise the NFT market today does not have a big enough room for the traditional art market to enter. It is still in the making. Right now, the NFT market is fresh, young and chaotic. It is flooded with generative art, gamy-fi projects, photography, not to mention that the music industry and luxury brands are already opening ‘the NFT world doors’. These types of movements, in my opinion, very much repeat history. What is happening these days on the NFT market is Marcel Duchamp. It is like the beginning of Modern Art, the renaissance of that same process yet now in the digital era. And these artists made peanuts in the scheme of economics over the past 50 years. Which is not the case on the NFT market. CryptoArt space offers full transparency and lifetime royalties for artists, to say the least. In other words, I believe it is the process that takes time to transition the traditional art market into Web 3.0 smoothly.

Jessica: There are so many incentives for artists to digitize their works without losing their artistic creativity or practice. Many people forget that NFTs are just tokens that are represented visually through a creative outlook that can range from a screenshot to photography and a digitally-rendered image. The token in itself can represent far more than just a ‘jpeg’ - it can be an entry ticket to a gated community, access to exclusive merchandise, future NFT projects…the list goes on. For the traditional art market and for artists, in particular, an NFT can capture and hold all types of information that are of such high value when it comes to the secondary market: its provenance, history, and literature, and the fact that artists can receive royalties on any future sales in perpetuity, something that does not exist in the traditional realm. Beyond that, it can reach a new wave of collectors who identify with the artist and their work and want to own it, display it virtually and physically, and be patron within the digital age. 

What kind of responsibility do you feel when releasing an artist’s archives into the blockchain, as opposed to the traditional art market? 

Margo: Then you introduce an artist to the whole new market, you have to make sure you take care of EVERYTHING. At most we value quality and smooth process that is why a lot of responsibility falls on us as a team. Especially in the case with TDA, the artist we are working with (Lawrence Horn) is unknown with no market in digital and physical worlds. That being said, it is a lot of hard work to make a successful launch of an NFT project and I feel like the main responsibility here is to create a strong community of visionaries that shares our values, which is similar to the traditional art world when it comes to building up a collectors base. 

Jessica: What a great question, and something that the entire team of TDA was working out for months prior to releasing the first NFTs. We wanted to capture the authenticity of this archive and the medium while also incorporating the technologies that blockchains and smart contracts provide. The team worked closely with the developer together to re-create the perforations that analog film photography displays once they get developed, but then we made it our own by displaying metadata that are in direct correlation to the way we archive the works. Another homage to analog photography is that we capture a roll code of 36 images, similar to what a singular film could offer. These types of nuances could not be accurately displayed in the traditional art market and the medium could not be highlighted in the way it can be on the blockchain. 

What distinguishes Neue Projects from other art dealers in the crypto art world? 

Margo: That is the thing, there are no art dealers in the NFT space. What you have is your personal brand, willingness to give unconditionally, share, support and hopefully you will end up having a community that trusts you to be a trendsetter.

Jessica: We do not position ourselves as art dealers in the NFT space, this term would not sit right with the community and could not simply work: we would not be able to play gatekeeper to any artworks and choose specific collectors over others--practices that are unfortunately way too common in the traditional art market. Instead, we would like to be viewed as curators who help NFT collectors to discover artists that create meaningful art and experiment within their creativity, who share personal stories within their craft and manage to capture something special within their works. 

You outlined a range of steps in your ‘community roadmap,’ from helping Lawrence upgrade his essentials and ensuring stable housing to the release of documentary footage and image display customization. The former in particular seem to be above and beyond the role of a traditional art consultancy. How do you define your role in helping artists succeed? 

Margo: The whole story behind the [Digital] Archive is indeed humanistic, real and life-changing. It is one of a kind. I feel like it does shed a light on our core intentions and beliefs. That being said, depending on the situation, artist and our capabilities we will continue to do our best to help artists we work with to get what they deserve within the art world both physical and digital. 

Jessica: We believe that working with an artist goes beyond just facilitating transitions as we know from the traditional art world. We want to invest in artists, help them in any way that is necessary for them to do what they do best: create art and influence culture. With the case of TDA, Lawrence was lacking basic human needs that were necessary in order for him to live a quality life. We came together as a collective to shed visibility on his work that he created 40 years ago, but that does not mean that our involvement stops there. We want him to be happy, healthy, and thriving. I guess this is what makes us different from a lot of other art advisors, dealers, and other projects within the NFT space: we do anything and everything for the artist, not for the collectors. Our approach is artist-first. 

What is in store for The [Digital] Archive in the future?

Margo: The goal is to onboard other analog photography archives created by incredibly talented visionaries to continue on growing our community within the NFT space and educating them on the historically significant movement of analog photography. 

Jessica: We are so excited to continue building out TDA as there is so much yet to uncover. We are definitely building out the documentary as the story continues to unfold. Besides the documentary, we focus on creating an entire brand around Lawrence Horn and TDA: we want to introduce multi-layer works, also known as derivatives, offer to license out the photographs to other creatives to add additional narratives to the work, educational content on analog photography, create merchandise, coffee table books and much more. We want to create a long-lasting community that will see the beauty and nostalgia in history and want to build a future where photography can live forever.